Harvard University Library
Visual Information Access
 Repository Descriptions

Name of repository
Special Collections Department
Harvard Law School Library

Address
Langdell Hall
1545 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138

Contact
Mindy Spitzer Johnston
Curator of Digital and Visual Resources

Telephone
617-495-3150

Fax
617-495-8588

Email
mjohnston@law.harvard.edu

Description of Special Collections at the Harvard Law School Library
With nearly two thousand linear feet of manuscripts, approximately two hundred thousand rare books, and more than seventy thousand paintings, prints, photographs, and other visual materials, the Special Collections Department houses one of the world's most comprehensive collections of research materials for the study of legal history. Its chief mission is to acquire, catalog, preserve, and make available to researchers materials that document the history of the law in general and of Anglo-American law in particular. Secondary goals include publicizing the existence of and fostering interest in these collections through Library exhibitions, classroom presentations, Web pages and digital collections, and the publication of finding aids and exhibition catalogs.

The Department serves the research needs of the immediate Harvard Law School community, the Harvard University community, and the scholarly world at large. Although the Department was organized as an administrative unit only in 1985, the history of the collecting of historical legal materials at the Harvard Law School Library dates to the founding of the Law School in 1817. Recent scholarship that has drawn on these collections conveys a good sense of the depth of the Library's holdings of primary research materials for legal history. The Department welcomes donations of materials consistent with its collecting policy.

Description of Image Holdings
The Art Collection and Visual Materials Collection documents the legal profession and the history of the law with paintings, sculpture, photographs, prints, drawings and artifacts. It was gathered initially by Dean Roscoe Pound and Librarian Eldon Revere James. It consists of over 45,000 items, including portraits of lawyers and judges, and prints and sculptures with legal themes. Over 300 paintings and sculptures are on display throughout the School. Some of the most outstanding of these, along with the rare volumes on law, are kept in the Caspersen Room. The rest, some 6,000 prints and over 40,000 photographs, are a valuable resource of the Library. All are available for reproduction in books and other publications, for display in exhibitions, television programs, and other media. A collection of materials that forms a visual history of the Law School is also available.

What’s in VIA?
There are currently over 3,000 records in VIA. The vast majority of these are from the Legal Portrait Collection of notable figures from legal history and were generated in the course of our Library Digital Initiative project. [See http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/special/collections/portraits/] In addition, new acquisitions are currently being added to the database.

How we use VIA
Our approach to cataloging has been at the item level and thus each “work” record represents an original item from the collections. We have contributed a few “group” records, mainly for items such as bound collections of images and photograph albums. The collections are focussed on historical content and this is reflected in the subject headings assigned to the images.

Permissions
The digital copy of any Harvard Law School Library image found in VIA is for personal use only, and may not be sold, loaned, copied or published without the express permission of the Harvard Law School Library.

Reproduction
For use of this image in any medium, please contact the Harvard Law School Library.

Copyright
The President and Fellows of Harvard College make no representation that they are the owner of the copyright; any researcher wishing to make such use of the image must therefore assume all responsibility for clearing reproduction rights and for any infringement of Title 17 of the United States Code.

Last modified:  Thursday, 06-Apr-2006 12:19:42 EDT  © 2004 President and Fellows of Harvard College